13. Plum Puddings and Paper Moons

The starting line for the march was outside the Colour Patch Café. Not many cars drove down High Street at that hour of the evening, because the café closed at half-past six and the march didn’t start until eight o’clock. But Constable Wilson put orange witches’ hats and detour signs at both ends of High Street to make everything look official.

Then he took off his policeman’s jacket and put on one of Scarlet’s screen-printed T-shirts. It was the extra, extra large one, and even so, the white dove was slightly stretched. But inside that T-shirt was Constable Teddy Wilson who was Katie’s daddy, and a very good man. And besides, as everyone knows, a chubby dove is as much a symbol of peace as a skinny one.

 

It was more a meander than a march. More a celebration than a demonstration. A celebration of the right to speak about things you think are wrong. It was also a thanksgiving for people who are brave enough to make big wishes.

Mr Jenkins led the way, playing the bagpipes. He’d once been a member of the Clan Macleod Highland Pipe band. He wore a kilt in those days and his Juliette fell in love with him because he had such nice legs. But it was too hot for pleated skirts on the evening of the march so Mr Jenkins just wore his tartan socks, and his sporran over his shorts. He played a tune called Amazing Grace three times over because it had been Juliette’s favourite song and was the only one he could remember by heart.

Perry Angel marched next to his friend Jenkins, beating his soup-pot snare drum with wooden spoons. Ben had loaned him a fur hat with a fox’s tail that Nell made for him when he was Perry’s age. And Annie had coaxed the echidna out of Perry’s gumboot with some worms from Nell’s worm farm. Perry looked very smart in his fur hat and gumboots with his Superman cape flying out behind him. Blue was the band’s mascot and walked between Mr Jenkins and Perry with a ‘P for peace’ sign around his neck.

Behind the band came the banner-bearers. Annie had made an old sheet into a banner with the words We’ve Declared Peace on the World printed across it in blue. She threaded Nell’s brass curtain rods through the seams at each end and Scarlet and Anik carried it between them.

After the banner-bearers walked Mr and Mrs Kadri and Grandmother Mosas pushing toddlers in strollers, then Auntie Shim, Auntie Janda and Uncle Tansil proudly wearing new blue T-shirts printed with white doves. In their hearts they carried the sadness of things lost: parents, children, brothers, sisters, limbs and lives and land. But with each small step they took, Anik and his family thought of all the things they had found: friendship, food, shelter, safety, the right to march in peace and a colourful girl called Scarlet Silk.

Scarlet had spent the rest of her wishband money and some of her pay from her Saturday job on candles and Mr Kadri gave her paper cups to put them in, enough cups and candles for all the marchers to carry one.

They walked as far as the sports ground behind Saint Benedict’s where they put their coffee-cup candles on the ground and joined hands. Old hands with young hands, dark with pale, small with large and rough with smooth in a long unbroken chain around the football field. Some people sang, others read or recited poems, some said their thankful thoughts out loud and others closed their eyes and made deep and silent wishes. Then the preacher rang the church bell and the children set white balloons free. They floated into the darkening heavenlies as silently as peace does when war ends.

Soon after, Mr Davis drove his bus through the gates in a cloud of dust and Ben climbed up on the monkey bars with a megaphone. First he thanked everyone for coming and then he said, ‘Refreshments will be served at the Kingdom of Silk. We’d love you all to come. For those of you who don’t have transport and can’t walk so far, Mr Davis has kindly offered to take you there in his bus.’

Elsie-from-the-post-office was the first to board the bus. She knew the Silk Road well. There wasn’t much more than a lick of tar on it now and she was certain all those loose red pebbles would jam the wheels of her walking frame. Besides, she wanted to have a chat with Mr Jenkins. She was sure he wouldn’t be intending to carry his bagpipes so far on such a hot night.

The journey from the sportsground to the Kingdom of Silk was another procession. Some people walked, others rode bicycles or drove cars and the preacher rode his Vespa. People came with folding chairs or picnic rugs and many brought food to share.

Ben cooked pizzas-to-order and Amber’s heart-shaped Armenian Love Cakes were a huge success. So were Auntie Ruby’s rumless rum balls. Elsie ate three. Then she brushed the crumbs off her cornflower-blue cardigan with a lace handkerchief and said she’d better not have any more in case she got tipsy. And before Amber had time to explain that the rum balls were as fake as pirate’s moustaches, Elsie stood up and wobbled her way across to the bridge from Gypsy’s Bend for a nice strong cup of tea.

 

When supper was over, Griffin and Layla climbed up on the haystack and lay on their backs watching the stars burn. Perry curled up in Annie’s arms. He’d taken off his cape and his gumboots and Ben’s fur hat. There was no need for a superhero tonight and he was no longer Drum Major. He was simply Perry Angel. He knew now that Perry Angel was a good thing to be and the Kingdom of Silk was in safe hands. His beautiful, scary, interesting teenage sister Scarlet had declared peace on the world.

Scarlet and Anik sat on the raft, full of magic and rum balls. Coffee-cup candles drifted beside them on the to-ings and fro-ings of the tides as they navigated the dark canals of Venice and glided silently beneath the Bridge of Sighs.

Being fifteen wasn’t so bad, Scarlet thought. You could be very brave and slightly wise but sometimes scared. When you were angry, loud or mean, you could be forgiven. It was okay to agree or disagree. And you could fight war with peace and fall a tiny bit in love. Scarlet had been and done all of the above but best of all she had made her grandmother proud.

Nell reclined on her deckchair under the Cox’s Orange Pippin. Voices drifted across the dam. A breath of wind wrinkled the water and rustled the paper chain that hugged the appled boughs. Candles flickered, lanterns danced, an angel face floated in the dark and Nell knew Tishkin was there.

Her thoughts flew to the deep and silent wish that all the Silks had wished and to the little more as well that Layla had written in her journal. Then to a line from her favourite poem: A time to be born and a time to die. And a pure and perfect thought was born. Nell knew, as surely as day follows night, that when it was her time, she wasn’t going anywhere. Like Tishkin she would stay, forever in the wind and the soil and the sky at the Kingdom of Silk. She smiled in the darkness and promised herself she wouldn’t forget to tell Layla and Griffin in the morning.

At five minutes to twelve, Ben took out his mouth-organ and played the preacher’s favourite tune, ‘Morning Has Broken’, and Annie sang. Mr and Mrs Elliott danced under the curtsying boughs of the Cox’s Orange Pippin and Layla made a deep and silent wish that every Christmas could be like this one.

Then someone called out.

‘It’s midnight! It’s Christmas Day!’

Annie shook Nell gently.

‘It’s time,’ she said and together they walked up to the kitchen.

 

The Prime Minister didn’t come to Scarlet’s peace march, but three hundred and seventeen other people did, which was a lot of people for a small town like Cameron’s Creek. It was almost all the people.

Not everyone was from Cameron’s Creek. Melody was there with three small girls and so was Sunday Lee. But there was enough of Nell’s leftover-on-purpose plum pudding for everyone to have a slice. On each plate beside the pudding was a small paper doily. In the centre, written in red, was Scarlet’s wish: Peace on Earth. If you held the doily against the sky it looked almost exactly like a moon.

 

The Daily Beacon called the peace march a triumph and printed a photograph of Scarlet on the front page. Underneath it said: Miss Scarlet Silk is hopeful that by next year, people in towns and cities all over the world will follow the example of the people of Cameron’s Creek and declare peace on war.